the jellyball family blog

Dear Noah,

Hey there, big fella. You have gone through something of a growth spurt lately, because I've started to notice that there are pants that you wear that we don't have to roll up anymore, and how when I am carrying you up the stairs, your feet bang against my knees. You are now 29 months old and so so so grown up.

In the past few months, you have become articulate (in two languages), fiercely independent, and talented beyond your two years. Sometimes I have to remind myself that you are JUST two years old and that despite the fact that you walk and talk like an older kid, sometimes you behave and react like one your own age. You are silly, goofy, and often times you hear exactly what I say and choose to do your own thing. You can also be sensitive, affectionate, patient (when you want to), and be a real "big boy" like your brother. You are tough as nails – if you fall or hurt yourself, all it takes is a "magic kiss" to cure the hurt and within seconds you're off running again. You are fearless – you are game for new and exciting things and you will do things like embark on an amusement park ride or jump in a cold swimming pool without a second thought. (Or, in some cases, jumping in it naked because you couldn't be bothered with wasting your time putting on your bathing suit.)

When asked what your name is, you easily respond "Noah", but occasionally (and especially if asked by your beloved Papie) you will answer "Noah Bam-buuuuni", which is apparently your Italian name. You speak in these long, beautiful sentences and master so many of the social rituals you've observed around you. I've heard you repeat the most hilarious things, like how you will say "Salut, mon grand" (Hey big guy) or "Ca va bien, mon amour?" (How's it going, my love?) You love to say hello to strangers, wave a "thank you" when someone yields to let us cross the street, fist bump, shake hands, give kisses and hugs.

The biggest breakthrough in the past month has been your toilet training. We'd started slowly several months ago, but when we realized that the start of school only months away, we put the toilet training in high gear and decided to make it a priority. We put you in underwear all day and watched you like a hawk for a week. There were some accidents, and some reluctance on doing the number 2 on the potty, but with a little help from M&Ms and an incredible amount of celebration after every success, you quickly got the hang of it. It really helped when we had you toilet-train Elmo at the same time, a job you assumed with real zest.

You're now fully toilet trained! We're now just refining things – making sure that when you declare you have to go, it's not a burning emergency where we have a mere seconds to make it to the potty. A few days ago, we put you in underwear for the night after having seen dry pull-ups every morning for a week. The best part of celebrating your success on the potty is when we cheer for you, and you take a bow – with one hand on your belly and one hand on your back, you dip forward with a dramatic bow to the sound of thunderous applause. It's truly awesome.

You are able to switch seamlessly from French to English and back again. Your English pronunciation can be a little rough sometimes but you never let a lack of vocabulary get in the way of trying to express yourself. You will yammer away in "English" to anyone who will speak it with you, and I'm often amazed at how much you are able to speak considering we still speak French at home and you're learning it from TV and from these occasional conversations with other people. You and Caleb will often play in English when you're doing train voices or car voices, and I can foresee that maintaining French as the language at home is going to be more of a challenge in the future.

You have these funny little expressions that you say that always make us laugh. You tell me a dozen times a day that I am beautiful ("T'es belle, Maman"). If you're a little slow at putting on your shoes and we've started to head outside, you will call out "WAIT UP GUYS!" as you run to catch up. You have a pretty good ear for repeating new words, but on the odd time that you mispronounce something, it will just make us laugh, like the way you say "all the time" in French – itself of saying "tout le temps", you say "toun-temps, toun-temps!"

Your sleeping habits have come a long way. You still sleep with your white bunny rabbit, Lapin, tucked under your arm and you have a small blue ball with fire trucks tucked away in the corner. (Up until recently, you also had a mini foam soccer ball in the mix too, but we recently found a couple big bites missing from it and pieces of foam next to the bed, so that was the end of that.) You still wake up a couple times a night and I've started to think that the frequent waking that you've always had have been attributed to night terrors, because there are times when you wake up wailing, with your eyes closed, and it isn't until you have your eyes open that you are able to respond to any kind of comfort.

You occasionally nap, though most days you don't. You usually wake up around 4-5am and ask if you can come sleep with us in our bed, sandwiched between the two of us. Once you're done with sleeping, you like to amuse yourself by sleeping sideways, kicking one of us in the face and neck, sticking your fingers up our nose or in our eyeballs, or – my personal favourite – slathering our faces with kisses while you coo "Allo Maman… Allo…." There are truly worse ways to wake up. We're trying to discourage too much sleeping in our bed (even though you've always done so to some degree) but secretly we still kind of love it, as you are a huge snuggle monkey and you still have such fat, kissable cheeks.

You are a picky, picky eater. There are days when we feel like we're banging our heads against a wall trying to get you to eat. Chicken? Only if it's in the form of a nugget. Forget an actual piece of undisguised chicken. A couple times we got you to eat some and this was only under the threat of not getting to go to the park after dinner, and each mouthful of chicken looked like it was sheer torture. Steak? Forget it. Sausages – surprisingly, this, you'll eat. Your vegetable repertoire includes red bell pepper, cucumbers (like it's nobody's business), red onion, broccoli, and roasted asparagus. Not bad considering a couple months ago you ate like, none. You and Caleb are hilarious when it comes to cucumbers – we cut them in rounds and serve them with vinegar to dip in, but usually we serve a single plate, which leads to a cucumber-eating race as you both attempt to get the most cucumbers possible. You are notorious for hoarding cucumbers on your side of the plate, and stealing from your brother's pile when he's not looking. If only you guys would fight over carrots or brussel sprouts! This is my dream… one day, maybe!

Not so surprisingly, you will eagerly open your mouth to try some new pastry or junk snack food, undoubtedly when your unhealthy-food-radar goes off. But try to introduce you to a new healthy food? Good lord, I'm so sorry to insult you. The worst is when I serve you a plate of food, you take one look at it, and then you shove the plate away as far as possible from you, declaring "Moi veut pas ca" (Me no want this). I wish you would do a lot more of "Moi l'aime ca!" (Me love this!) You've been so stubborn that you have basically skipped your dinner, even on the threat of no dessert. The other day you pretty much went to bed with no dinner because you refused to eat. I'm really worried that you won't eat anything when you start school next week, but experienced parents have told me that after a couple of days, hunger and peer pressure sets in and even the pickiest eaters will start to eat.

You have got a real sweet tooth. Ice cream has got to be your favourite thing in the world. You have quickly mastered the technique of eating ice cream with a spoon to the point where you out-eat your brother when we are all sharing ice cream in a cup. Heck, you practically out eat ME, you're so fast. You're a big fan of popsicles, too. Heck, you'd probably trade Lapin for a popsicle if it came down to it.

You are an affectionate little guy who loves to hug and give kisses. I love it when you grab my face in your hands and plant kiss after kiss on my lips and my cheeks. You love to give hugs, and when you do, you lovingly pat-pat-pat us on the back as your arms are wrapped around us. The goodbye routine when I go to work is always quite lengthy – you usually get a little upset if you don't get to say your goodbyes the way you like to. It's like a checklist – you need to say "Bonne journee" (have a good day), "A tantot" (see you later), "Je t'aime" (I love you), and "bye-bye!", not to mention endless hugs and kisses. Some days you are so distraught that your dad has to distract you with "Hey, want to go watch an episode of Franklin?" to which you will react with diminished crying, because you still don't want me to go, but darnit, you really do want to go watch your favourite TV show.

Sometimes you and Caleb role-play, where Caleb is "Franklin", the turtle from the animated TV series of the same name, and you are "Bear", Franklin's best friend. Sometimes you guys are trains, and sometimes you're characters from Bob the Builder. It's quite amusing to see you guys acting out these elaborate scenarios. Sometimes we call you "Minh-Minh", Minh being your middle name, especially if we can't seem to get your attention (which is quite common because la-la-la, you are your own man and you answer to no one!)

Next week, you will be starting a four-week stint in a toddler program at your new school. We had signed you up to start school a little earlier to ease the transition into the older group, so for the first four weeks you're going to be on the older end of the age scale, and then once September rolls around, you'll go into the older group. We hadn't been sure if you would be fully toilet trained in time, so the toddler program was a good transition in that respect as well, but since you've done so well, we now just get to focus on transitioning you from doing full days at home with a parent and Caleb to a full day at school without Caleb (who will be in a different class). My heart breaks at the thought of it – but I have a feeling, especially in recent months – that you are ready for this. The initial transition might be hard, but all kids do it, and all parents survive it. I know that once you're adjusted, you're going to love it.

Because, as you love to say, you're a big boy now.

Love you very much, my little Minh-Minh.

Maman & Papa